Canada Radio Station Burns $5,000 in Publicity Stunt, Heavily Criticised on Social Media

A boy stands near his mother in Doctor Juan Leon Mallorquin March 13, 2014. Poverty affects nearly 40 percent of the Paraguayan population and is concentrated in sub-urban areas and in the rural sector.
REUTERS/Jorge Adorno

A Canadian radio station is now under fire after they pulled off a publicity stunt of burning $5,000 in cash.

Amp Radio Calgary is being criticised for their publicity stunt which involved burning $5,000 in cash. It is said that that money could have been given to any charity instead of wasting it in such a "cheap" manner. The radio campaign was called "Bank It or Burn It", where the listeners had to decide whether an amount of money should be awarded to a listener or destroyed.

The verdict of the listeners came in favour of "burning" the cash. 54 per cent listeners apparently voted in favour of destroying the cash. That was exactly why a couple of hosts of the morning show followed the "public opinion", piled the cash into a crematory and burned it to ashes; CTV News reported.

Even though there has been harsh criticism from various corners of the country, Ryan Lindsay defended the campaign. Mr Lindsay was one of the morning show hosts who burned the money. He defended the act by calling it an "effective marketing scheme". When CTV Calgary talked to Mr Lindsay, he said that the amount of money was just a "fraction" of the amount spent by any other company for their marketing costs.

What he might have meant was that the radio station has been able to grab a lot more attention for such a "meagre" amount of $5,000. He said that the campaign caused "a lot of talk". Contrary to what Mr Lindsay or the radio station might believe, the campaign has received harsh backlash. Several listeners from Calgary claimed that they would stop listening to the radio station after such a publicity campaign.

The Facebook page of the radio station has now got overloaded with critical comments. One of the users, Kelsey Elisa Jones wrote that she had lost respect with the channel's recent contests. She wrote that AMP made her feel sorry about how her generation acted. She asked the radio station to "grow up".

According to Jordan Hamilton of Calgary Drop-In and Rehab Centre, the amount could have changed "the lives" of at least a hundred people who are in need of it. It would have provided counselling and medical support to them. The "enormous amount" would have been enough to give them food and shelter, it claimed.